UPDATE: In September 2018, UCS released an animated feature and video that explains how space-based missile defense works. Check it out here.

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Articles citing a classified 2011 report by the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) have mistakenly suggested the report finds that a constellation of only 24 satellites can be used for space-based boost-phase missile defense. Read More

Part 1 of this post discusses one aspect of the 2011 letter from Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to then-Senator Kyl about the IDA study of space-based missile defense. The letter raises several additional issues, which I comment on here. Read more >

North Korea is not likely to negotiate in earnest unless it is convinced the United States is committed to the process. It is important that the administration put together a package of what it is willing to put on the table in response to Pyongyang’s steps. Read more >

President Trump is planning to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in May or June. In preparing for the summit, the administration must be clear about what it wants from the process—both near-term and long-term. And it needs to figure out what it is willing to put on the table to get those things. Read more >

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David Wright, physicist and co-director of the UCS Global Security Program, is an established expert on the technical aspects of arms control, particularly those related to missile defense systems, missile proliferation, and space weapons.